A brave attempt to make sci-fi less geeky

Is there anything wrong with a geeky image? Photograph: Mike Agliolo/Corbis

The US cable channel Sci Fi is changing its name to Syfy. It may look like the brand name for a new ointment for an unspeakable complaint, but it is designed to disassociate the channel from science fiction's persistent geeky image.

Will it work? They could do worse than look at UKTV, which has rebranded most of its channels over the last 18 months or so. The most successful of these is agreed to be the change from UKTV G2 (no relation) to Dave, which better evoked a schedule aimed at those in possession of 18- to 34-year-old XY chromosomes.

Invention, alas, quickly ran out (UKTV History became the dismally literal Yesterday). Meanwhile, UKTV Docs (documentaries not medical personnel) became Eden, UKTV Drama became Alibi ("the world's largest detective agency", which confirmed suspicions that for TV controllers the word "drama" has become synonymous with "cop show"), UKTV People became Blighty and UKTV Gold was split into Watch (people didn't) and GOLD, a comedy channel whose name is short for Go On Laugh Daily. And presumably even shorter for Go On Laugh Daily Even Though the Bulk of Output Consists of Repeats of Last of the Summer Wine and Butterflies Which Were Bad Enough the First Time Round 30 Frigging Years Ago." Good luck, Syfy. You're going to need it.

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About this article

Lucy Mangan: Sci Fi changes its name to Syfy

This article appeared on p8 of the G2 section of the Guardian
on Tuesday 17 March 2009.
It was published on
the Guardian website
at 20.01 EDT on Tuesday 17 March 2009.
It was last modified at 07.35 EST on Tuesday 27 January 2015.
It was first published at 20.15 EDT on Tuesday 17 March 2009.